Hybrid Judaism: The Transformation of American Jewish Identity

Who are North American Jews today? How has identity changed or shifted over time? How does this affect our work?

By Rabbi Darren Kleinberg, Ph.D.

The Meaning of Identity

When asked about their identity, most people respond with the words “I am…” followed by a signifier from a chosen identity category (“Trans,” “Jewish,” “Feminist,” etc.). By answering the question this way, people indicate that they think of identity as describing their essence, or their very nature. In recent years, it has become increasingly clear that this is a mistaken understanding of identity.

In the 1960s, the linguist D. David Bourland devised E-Prime, which is a version of the English language that removes all forms of the verb “to be.” Without going too far down the rabbit hole with E-Prime, I will just point out that a more accurate understanding of identity leads to the conclusion that the verb “to be” (as in, “I am…”) should be abandoned. Identity is not a psychological category that describes who one “is,” but rather it is a sociological category that describes one’s affiliations, or encounters.

Beginning with the great migration that brought more than 20 million immigrants to American shores between 1880 and 1924, and continuing on through to the present day, the United States has become one of the most diverse countries in the history of the world. This has meant that Americans have had an unprecedented opportunity to interact with large numbers of individuals who are different (ethnically, religious, culturally, etc.) from themselves. So,if identity is the product of social interactions, it should be no surprise that the identity construction of many Americans has undergone significant changes over the course of the same period of time.

Hybrid Identities

Today, in what is sometimes referred to as the era of postethnicity, Americans are able to choose freely from a wide array of overlapping identity categories (Culture, Ethnicity, Gender, Religion, Sexuality, etc.) that reflect their various affiliations. Moreover, we are not limited to just one identity; in fact, as David Hollinger has noted, “most individuals live in many circles simultaneously,” and thus can, and often times do, claim multiple identities.

If identity is the product of our social interactions, beginning with the family and continuing on through a lifetime of encounters, then it follows that, as those interactions become more complex, so too does our identity. This understanding of identity is best described as “hybrid,” and is crucial to understanding the state of contemporary American Jewry.

By hybrid, I mean to say that American Judaism is, in large part, “derived from heterogeneous sources, or composed of different or incongruous elements” (Oxford English Dictionary). The same also can be said for the rest of American society. Just as Jews have incorporated various other identities into their own complex mix, so too have non-Jews, with some incorporating aspects of Judaism into their own identities.

Given this reality, it is fair to state that the binary distinction between Jew and non-Jew is an increasingly ineffective way to describe those people found in and outside of the American Jewish community. A better approach would be to describe people in terms their affiliations. In this sense, affiliation doesn’t refer narrowly to organizational membership (although that too can be a part of affiliation) but rather to any number of expressions of Jewish life.

Identity to Affiliation

What does this shift from identity to affiliation mean for contemporary American Jewish life? The rise of Hybrid Judaism is not only something that we need not fear but also something we should embrace and advance whenever and wherever possible. While some will surely lament these developments, they hold within them the potential for a transformation of messianic proportions. To help us better understand this transformative potential, we now move from sociology to theology, and the writings of Rabbi Dr. Irving “Yitz” Greenberg.

As Greenberg has written, the diverse and open society in which we live means that citizens can encounter one another freely and recognize “the other as no longer other but as the image of God.” For Greenberg, being in the image of God means that all human beings are endowed with three fundamental dignities: infinite value, equality, and uniqueness. If we try to imagine what reality would look and feel like if we all encountered one another informed by these three dignities, it would quickly become clear that we would be living in a perfected world.

An open and democratic society holds the greatest opportunity to appreciate the infinite value, equality and uniqueness of other human beings. To achieve this fully, we must be open to the possibility that we, too, will be transformed by the encounter. In Greenberg’s words, encounter means that “…while I may come to refute or reject some contradictories, I may also learn from others’ insights and may even integrate them, thus improving my own system.” In this statement, it is clear that Greenberg’s vision is one that welcomes and embraces the transformative power of encounter.

The humility to recognize the limitations of our own worldview, along with the openness to the possibility that others may possess some insight that could improve our own understanding, are precisely what are needed so badly today.

Up until now, much of Hybrid Judaism has happened unintentionally. It is now time to become more intentional about the opportunities that lie ahead.

Here are a few suggestions for what it will take to commit to a program of transformative encounters:

1. Three thousand years of Jewish wisdom and values have a great deal to offer to all people in contemporary American life. Unfortunately, precious few American Jews appreciate this fact. We need to cultivate more educational leaders and institutions that will prioritize a wide array of programs intended to expose Jews and non-Jews alike to the very best of Jewish wisdom and values.

2. Transformative encounters should be prioritized throughout Jewish organizations. Here are some examples of how to achieve this goal.

Community Jewish schools (at all grade levels) should seriously consider changing their enrollment policies and begin to serve the entire community. To be clear, schools should consider changing their enrollment policies to allow for the admission of non-Jews and should re-think their Jewish studies curricula to serve as a guide for all of humanity, and not just the Jewish people. Put another way, we should share the best of Jewish education with all comers and also learn how to translate Jewish wisdom and values into a more universal language.

Synagogues that aren’t bound by Jewish law (Halacha) should remove all distinctions among participants. If people are coming to participate in the community, they should be welcomed wholeheartedly and indiscriminately. This means, for example, that those who do not self-identify as Jewish but affiliate with the Jewish community through a synagogue (for example, a non-Jewish spouse) should have full access to all ritual and leadership opportunities.

Jewish Community Centers need to do a better job of serving their non-Jewish members and also create opportunities for Jews and non-Jews to encounter one another. After all, every JCC member is affiliated with Jewish life, so let’s do a better job of serving them all.

Jewish advocacy and political organizations need to reignite the best of the Catholic- and Christian-Jewish dialogue movement of the 1960s and ’70s by investing resources in Jewish-Muslim dialogue. The Second Vatican Council’s decision in 1965 to abandon the charge that all Jews are guilty of deicide (i.e. killing Jesus) makes clear the potential of such encounters.

These are just some of the very practical changes that could take place in American Jewish life if we are to begin to realize the messianic potential of the postethnic era in which we live.

The increasingly hybrid nature of American Jewish identity should lead us to the conclusion that what matters is whether people wish to be affiliated with the Jewish community, not how, or to what extent, they choose to identify themselves – after all, affiliation is identity. If we are able to do this, our Jewish communities will grow, even as their constitution will likely undergo significant change. The result will be a Jewish community that, rather than remaining self-absorbed with its own survival, can turn its focus to the perfection of humanity through transformative encounters.

To be clear, the result of such changes will necessarily be a transformation of identity. As people enter into encounters with others that they consider to be of infinite and equal value, and that are unique, how could they not be transformed as a result? But, surely, the greatest act of idolatry we can commit is ensuring the continuity of our particular group in its current (or imagined) form at the expense of the perfection of humanity.

This is the opportunity. Who’s with me?

Darren Kleinberg was ordained by Yeshivat Chovevei Torah in 2005 (full disclosure: he is no longer Orthodox) and received his Ph.D. in religious studies from Arizona State University in 2014. He is the author of Hybrid Judaism: Irving Greenberg, Encounter, and the Changing Nature of American Jewish Identity (Academic Studies Press, 2016), which can be purchased here, and currently serves as Head of School of Kehillah Jewish High School, in Palo Alto, California. You can reach Darren at dazzaroo@gmail.com.
This post first appeared on Ideas in Jewish Education and Engagement.

Reader Interactions

Comments

Outside of the Orthodox community sadly, the pattern for non-Orthodox identity is:
Jewish
Next generation: Half Jewish (Half Christian)
Generation after that: Christian.
Consider 7 out of 10 non-Orthodox Jews marry non Jews (PEW Oct 2013 71.5%)
83% of children of mixed marriages marry non-Jews (about 17 out of 20) Same source as above.
With only one out of four grandparents being Jewish is it a wonder that about 86% of the grandchildren of the intermarried no longer consider themselves Jewish at all?
2.1 million American adults (also according to PEW 2013) have at least one Jewish parent but do not consider themselves Jewish at all.
Changing identities is right. From Jewish to Christian over time. Very sad.

Dear Rabbi Kleinberg–you correctly identify the escalating nature of hybrid Jewish identity, particularly among Millennials. And your recommendation that Judaism should absorb matter from outside cultures has actually been the reality for thousands of years. Scholars have actually pointed out that this process of adaptation from the outside, along with modification of these adaptations to suit Jewish tradition, has been the key element that has enabled Jewish tradition to survive. What is missing in your proposal is an acknowledgment that Jews–particularly those who do not believe themselves to be bound by halakhah, need to work harder to insure that Jewish tradition continues to be part of the “multi” in our multi-cultural society. I wrote about this very issue in the context of the Conservative Movement’s new membership standard allowing non-Jews to be members of Conservative synagogues (forthcoming in the April, 2017 issue of Commentary Magazine and online now). I criticized this standard as being ill-advised for a movement that in theory is aligned with halakhah. You might be interested to know that I heard from several Reform rabbis who completely understood my perspective given their own experiences with non-Jewish board members and other issues that can result from unbound inclusion. I teach law to mostly non-Jewish students, including a course called Family Law and Jewish tradition. What draws my students to this class is their desire to learn about the particulars of a tradition that is largely unfamiliar to them. My point here is simple: North American Jews are the minority culture and unless we work harder at maintaining a thick cultural religious tradition, and safeguarding the particularity of that tradition, the benefits of the tradition that Rabbi Greenberg holds so dearly will be confined to just the Orthodox.

Thank you Rabbi Kleinberg for this article. You are stating exactly what the picture looks like in America. The sooner we, as a Jewish community, make sure that the programs we are offering are relevant the better off we are and the more people will affiliate.
I just came from “Make Room for Matzah” a program several of us do for young families at our JCC’s. We had 70 parents and children making Miriam chops to take home, having a “seder plate meditation taste” experience, a book read to them and a service project of making scarves for hospice patients. With the coordination of IFF, Love and Religion, the Edlavitch DCJCC, Jewish Food Experience, JSSA and PJ Library, 20 urban families with young children had a meaningful Jewish experience in a Jewish institution. It was ‘low barrier,’ low cost, urban, meaningful, relevant and connecting.

I applaud Rabbi Kleinberg’s attempt to help us identify and program for emerging realities in the Jewish community. The more we know about what motivates and attracts members of our community, the better we can connect and inspire them. I think, however, that something is missing in his formula.

Rabbi Kleinberg observes that identity is “a sociological category that describes one’s affiliations, or encounters.” Moving to theology, he adds Rabbi Greenberg’s three fundamental dignities – infinite value, equality, and uniqueness – as qualities of the encounters we should be having. He ends with policy recommendations, rooted in a pluralism and universalism, which will increase affiliation of modern Jews.

I am reminded of Mordecai Kaplan’s famous three-part construction of identity: believing, belonging, and behaving. Over the decades people have debated which, if any of these, must come first, or if all three are even needed. Rabbi Kleinberg seems to posit that belonging will come first. When Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote that, when it comes to Jewish Law and ritual, Jews must take a “leap of action” not a “leap of faith” he was saying that behaving would lead to believing. At the other extreme, Franz Rosenzweig, whose move away from an impending conversion to Christianity, sought his way back to Judaism through intense study of Jewish Philosophy. When asked about his readiness to put on T’fillin he said, “Not yet.” For him, it was believing, then belonging. These latter two have sources in the Torah: naaseh v’nishma – we will do, then we will understand; sha’manu v’asinu – we will learn, then we will do.

So what’s missing in Rabbi Kleinberg’s formula? There are various ways to define “identity” just as there are many ways to understand affiliation (or lack thereof). I don’t think, however, that “belonging” can be the only metric. It leads to endless varieties of programming that cause mission drift and undermine the uniqueness of our institutions.

Similarly, the core content of Judaism, irrespective of one’s affiliation patterns, cares deeply for all of humanity (see the first blessing of Birkat HaMazon). Believing and behaving provide the theology and actions that lead to the “perfection of humanity” that Rabbi Kleinberg envisions. In that way, I categorize “ensuring our survival” not as an act of idolatry, but as a way of keeping our contribution to the world constant and impactful.

So, yes, Rabbi Kleinberg, assume and program for the Hybrid Identity, but nurture the parts that need and respond to beliefs, rituals and Jewish patterns of behavior.

Primary Sidebar

Join The Conversation

What's the best way to follow important issues affecting the Jewish philanthropic world?
Our Daily Update keeps you on top of the latest news, trends and opinions shaping the landscape, providing an invaluable source for inspiration and learning.